Last night, I had an anxiety dream. I have finally graduated past the old anxiety dreams of showing up unprepared for the final exam of a class that I had forgotten to attend. I guess that’s progress. Last night’s anxiety dream was that I had been called up for jury duty, and I had nobody to watch my children. Also, all the Kinex, Duplo blocks, Lego, and Little People toys had gotten mixed together, and I had to sort them all out.
Those aren’t real anxieties anymore. I still have toy bins for when the younger cousins come to visit, but maintaining order in a tiny city apartment isn’t an issue anymore. Also, if I got called up for jury duty, I could leave Ian alone for a short while, until Jonah came home on the school bus. I could probably flash the special needs card to get out of jury duty all together. The brain must retain the old anxieties until new ones show up. I look forward to the eating cat food to pay for college dreams.
Over the weekend, Heather Havrilesky wrote about about how society views parents, especially women.
…some combination of overzealous parenting, savvy marketing and glorification of hearth and home have coaxed the public into viewing female parents as a strange breed apart from regular people. You might feel like the same person deep inside, but what the world apparently sees is a woman lugging around a giant umbilical cord.
Ten years ago, I would have enthusiastically linked to the article. I found parenthood a huge shock at first. But, yesterday, I was skimmed the article with a big “meh.” You don’t like how society views women with kids in their 30s, I thought. Wait until you’re forty, and you become invisible. Besides, who cares what other people think about me?
I really enjoyed KJ Dell’Antonia’s response. She said that the biggest problem for mothers, isn’t society’s perception of women as breeders. The biggest problem for mothers is the lack of support, especially for those with lower incomes. Society expects women to raise children to become productive citizens, but without any help. That’s a problem.
Apt. 11d 
I liked KJ Dell’Antonia’s response too. I especially liked the comment section, which is Exhibit A of everything she mentioned in her response, including iterations about “having it all” (because who do we think we are, men or something?).
There’s a caucus race of articles that appear in succession on slow media days that seem designed to bring out agita/clicks: childcare/mommy wars, low-wage and/or single mothers, divorce, the looming Baby Boom demographic threat to the economy, the looming Baby Bust/economic bust threat to the economy, the price of college vs. lack of middle-class jobs for the graduates. Followed by paeans to the Ozzie-and-Harriet, way-we-never were past exemplified more on television than real life (“if only poor women would marry first, there would be no child care issues!”). Shorter version: step away from the clickbait. Watching cognitive dissonance is bad for your forehead.
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And don’t forget the collective back patting of “that’ll never be me” because I’m educated/smart/hard worker/self made/etc. with the implication that it’s always “their” fault for poverty, etc.
Nope, no structural/systemic problems requiring any changes. Those cost money and inconvenience!
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